


Once You Go Bathtub...

by silenth



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27279193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silenth/pseuds/silenth
Summary: Alice Brandon is a celebrity psychic with a big problem. Can her Human Terminator bodyguard rescue her again? All Human but with powers. (Mostly Alice/Jasper, mentions of Esme/Carlisle, Rosalie/Emmett, and Bella/Edward)
Relationships: Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale, Carlisle Cullen/Esme Cullen, Edward Cullen/Bella Swan, Emmett Cullen/Rosalie Hale
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	Once You Go Bathtub...

Every life has a pivot - a moment when everything changes. Some of them are momentous, but others are as random as an elevator ride, a party game, a missed phone call. Then the world flips on its axis and become a place that's totally bizarre and unexpected. Think hippos sunning themselves at the North Pole, dolphins swimming through the desert. 

For Alice Brandon, it happened a month after her father relocated the family to Los Angeles, California, to run his father-in-law's ritziest jewelry store. It was the crown jewel, pun intended, of her grandfather's chain and the opportunity her father had been waiting for since he married her mother eighteen years earlier. 

Alice was only seventeen, and she was less than thrilled about the big move coming right before her senior year of high school, but Mama had begged her to try and make the most of it. So Alice pasted a smile on her face and went shopping for a new wardrobe with her father's charge card. On the first day of school, she was deemed cool enough and thin enough to be adopted into the clique of popular girls. At Fatima's 17th birthday party, staring at the mountain of over a hundred elaborately wrapped presents, she realized she was definitely not in Mississippi anymore. She was the only girl there who hadn't had a nose job, boob job, or Botox, and she could feel her cool status starting to slip. So during a lull when all the girls were staring at their smart phones, she busted out her best party trick.

"I bet I can guess what 90 percent of those presents are, without even touching them," she boasted, and when Pixie Delgado-Jacobsen scoffed, Alice immediately pointed to Pixie's gift and said, "A Birkin bag." As she continued, the other girls were so impressed that they barely paid attention to the former boy bander who'd been hired to perform at the party. Instead, they kept asking Alice questions about their futures, most of which turned out to be right. (Sadly for Pixie, who was dismayed to learn when she checked Twitter that her boyfriend actually _was_ cheating on her at the out-of-town lacrosse game.) 

Unbeknownst to Alice, one of the other guests was the daughter of a fading Real Housewife who was looking for a new plot device for her upcoming season. Alice quickly became the woman's on- and off-air psychic consultant. Within a year, she was the biggest celebrity clairvoyant in the world, with a client list of top actors, directors, producers, writers, sports figures, business tycoons, even politicians. Not all of her predictions came true, but she had a scary-high level of accuracy, and the better she got to know the person she was predicting for, the more accurately she could see their future. 

By the time she was 23, she had a hundred regular clients, and took on another hundred or so prior to awards season (hearing "Sorry, sweetie, this isn't your year" from Alice Brandon was enough to send any actor to his or her bed for a week). She was constantly jetting across the globe to perform sessions. Being in the same room as her client didn't actually make a difference as far as her visions went, but the wealthier people were, the more they wanted to be catered to, so permanent jet lag was par for the course. Though when she was traveling first class, staying in luxury hotels, and meeting fashion designers across the world, well, it wasn't like she could really complain, was it? 

Her family certainly didn't object to any of it. Once she got famous, her father started asking her for stock tips and they quickly became so rich that running the jewelry business was just a hobby. Her little sister Thea had thrived in California from the beginning, and even her parents seemed a little happier now that they had enough money to afford separate houses and household staffs.

Of course, fame brought its own problems. When Alice was 20, someone started stalking her. Most famous people have to deal with this issue at some point, but for Alice, it quickly escalated to another level. No matter where she went, anywhere in the world, he was always there. She never saw him, but he sent her photos of herself, all with her eyes cut out. There were photos he had taken on the street, but also in her own backyard and from the security feeds of exclusive hotels. 

Her father was worried enough to hire Alice a full-time security guard (though it was debatable if he was more worried about losing his daughter or her financial advice). Actually, he hired three in quick succession, two men and one woman, and they all failed as the photographs kept coming. None of them could explain how this guy was doing it -- one even insisted Alice was doing it herself for the attention. 

She had moved out of her parents' house by this time, but she had a top of the line security system installed at her new home in the Hollywood Hills. He still managed to break in, during the day while she was out, and left a bullet and a rose on her pillow. She was so scared when she got home that night that she threw her window open and screamed out into the dark - "What the hell do you want?!"

The next day, a photograph of her standing in the window came, her eyes cut out and one word scrawled on the back - 

"You."

After that, Alice's father got serious and brought in the big guns. The fourth person he hired was the best that Alice's money could buy. It took six long months, but her stalker was arrested and was currently serving a life sentence in prison. She was the fourth woman he had stalked in the past ten years. The other three were found buried in his backyard in Pasadena. 

That ordeal seemed to attract more weirdo creeps out of the woodwork, not to mention that everywhere she went, Alice was besieged by regular people asking her for help. So, the bodyguard stayed on, and he was still with her three years later. 

He was the best, after all, even if he happened to be the bane of her existence.

It wasn't that Jasper Whitlock was rude or creepy or lazy or demanding, or any of the other things her clients complained about when it came to their bodyguards. On the contrary, he was always polite and professional. And he dressed impeccably - always in a crisp, perfectly tailored suit. In three years, she had never seen loosen his tie or undo the top button, even when the security system went off in the middle of the night and he rushed into her room at 4am with his gun drawn.

And his professionalism was the very thing that made her insane. "Who is _he_?" she whispered to her father when he had first introduced her to Jasper, and her father patted her shoulder and told her Whitlock might look young, but he was very highly recommended, and the best, only the very best for his little girl. But what Alice really meant was - "Where has he been all my life? And how do I get him to notice me?"

Not that he _didn't_ notice her - after all, that was his job. He took three weeks vacation every year, at her insistence, but aside from that, he had been by her side every day for three years. She felt his dark eyes sweep over her dozens of times a day, shivered at his hand on her back as they walked through a crowded airport or hotel lobby. Hell, he slept in a bedroom down the hall from her room on the rare nights they were at home! In hotels, he slept in an adjoining room and she had never ever stayed up looking at the door handle between their rooms, imagining what he would do if she walked into his room and climbed into his bed. Nope, never not once.

She had no doubt that someone as thorough as Jasper Whitlock had researched her down to the ground. He probably knew what kind of tampons she used, not to mention how many guys she had slept with (six, though she hadn't had a serious boyfriend in over a year). He knew her better than anyone else in the world, better than her best friend. _They_ should be friends, or at least friendly, but after three years, he had never called her anything but Miss Brandon or the dreaded "ma'am."

It drove her absolutely crazy. 

Alice prided herself on being cheerful and approachable. It was her nature and it had also worked out well for her professionally -- being kind and down-to-earth made her clients more likely to listen and take her advice. She got along with everyone who worked for her (she also employed a housekeeper and pet sitter, not to mention her manager, agent, lawyer, accountant, landscaper, and all the other professional accoutrements that seemed to be required once her yearly income exceeded a certain number of zeroes). Even the desk clerks at the hotels she regularly stayed at in London, New York, Miami, Paris, Sydney, and Rome remembered her fondly and always greeted her with fresh bouquets of white lilies. 

But Jasper was the nut she couldn't crack. The first day they met, he drove her home, his single suitcase in the trunk of her bright yellow Porsche 911 convertible. She had tried to put him at ease. "I hope you'll let me know if you don't like your room or if you need anything. I know my father said you would stay in the room nearest to mine, but if you want a different one, it's really fine with me. I bought the house for the view but it's way too big for me and there's plenty of space."

He was wearing dark sunglasses that matched his black suit and tie, but he turned his head to look at her while they were stuck in traffic, and once she reached a stopping point, he said, "Miss Brandon, I have to be in the room closest to yours so I can reach you quickly if there's a security breach."

"Oh, of course. Well, my father says you're the best chance I have to get rid of this horrible man. None of the others could help me. The last one, Paul, thought I was making it up." 

"You're not." He scoffed a little, his opinion of Paul clear. "Your father should never have hired him."

"So... that means you think you can catch him?" she ventured.

"I will not leave your side until the threat is neutralized," he told her in a serious, calm voice, and she relaxed a little bit for the first time in months. There was something about his presence that was deeply reassuring.

"I should call you the Terminator, I guess," she laughed. "You kind of look like that guy in the first one, the one who gets her pregnant?" His face was blank, his eyes still hidden by his sunglasses and she shrugged. "Guess you're not a fan of action movies. I'm guessing by your haircut that you were in the Army? Are you going to keep it that way or let it grow out? I think you could really rock longer hair. I can't grow mine out too long because I'm so short, it starts to look a little ridiculous." 

Silence. He looked back out the window as the traffic moved and managed to inch her car forward a few feet. _Jeez, this guy is not a good conversationalist. Poor thing, I wonder if he's nervous._ "Well, were you?" she prompted when the car stopped again. "In the army?"

"My qualifications were clearly listed in my resume, ma'am. I provided a copy to your father and your lawyer, and I was under the impression that they had shared it with you. Should I have a copy printed for you?"

She frowned immediately at the "ma'am" and reached out to put her hand on his arm. "Jasper, I hope you'll call me Alice. Absolutely everybody does." 

He looked down at her hand so quickly she thought she imagined it, and then he managed to weave his way over to the on-ramp to the Interstate. He revved the engine as he began to drive back to her home. "I don't think that would be appropriate for someone in my position, Miss Brandon."

 _For someone in my position, Miss Brandon._ The words still haunted her three years later. He might as well have said, "No thanks, you have all the sex appeal of a bowl of mushy cereal and by the way, I think you're a charlatan and a loser."

She had tried at least twice more -- never let it be said Alice gave up easily -- but no matter how friendly she tried to be, Jasper looked at with ~~gorgeous, soulful~~ impassive brown eyes and said something like please don't worry about me, Miss Brandon, or I'll be waiting outside the door whenever you're ready to leave, _ma'am_ , and that was that. 

So she called him Jasper and treated him like she would a second cousin she ran into at a family funeral, and he called her ma'am and escorted her all over the world. 

And now, thanks to him, she was completely alone in Rome and had no idea how she was going to get herself out of this mess. 

She wasn't actually alone, of course. She glared at the bathroom door and stretched her legs out in the palatial marble bathtub, where she was currently lying, fully clothed, and chewing on her thumbnail. She hadn't been alone in three years. In fact, right now, she could hear his massive feet approaching and--

"Miss Brandon? Your session with Ms. Ventura is in an hour. Will you be ready to go in ten minutes?"

She closed her eyes and tried to center herself. She could do this. She had been doing this for the past week. She was in control. She was a child of the earth. She had all the forces of the universe inside her. Everything would be all right in the end--

"Miss Brandon?"

 **Fuck it.**

"No, Jasper, I will not be ready to go in ten minutes! Not that you care, but I'm having a nervous breakdown in here, and I'll probably have an aneurysm long before ten minutes is up, so you can finally get a new client! Yay for you!" Alice burst into tears when she said aneurysm and the last attack was so high-pitched that Jasper probably couldn't even understand it. 

There was a brief pause, and then he knocked again. "Ma'am, may I please come in?"

"Oh, fine," she sniffled, sitting up in the empty tub and pressing her hands to her blotchy pink face. The good thing was he wouldn't care if she looked like crap. He had already seen her cry over her stalker during the scary months when he had first started, not to mention that time the airline lost all the new clothes she had brought home from Paris Fashion Week (they still hadn't been found, but she never got a vision to help with _that,_ of course not) and her tears of joy when her sister gave her Agatha, the sweetest little dog in the entire world. (Named for Samantha Morton's precog character in _Minority Report,_ Alice's fictional soulmate.)

Jasper entered and slowly sat on the edge of the tub, looking at her like she was a bomb he had 60 seconds to defuse. Of course, he looked perfect, as freaking always, his black tie knotted in a perfect Windsor knot, his shoes shined to a mirror sheen. His blonde hair had grown out since the day he had started three years ago, and it had the barest hint of a wave at the ends. She never did find out if it was so short back then because he had been in the military. She had too much pride to ask for his resume when he wouldn't answer her direct question.

"Is there anything I can do to help you, Miss Brandon?" he asked in his deep voice, his drawl cutting off the 'g' in anything and turning Miss into 'Miz.' She was almost positive he was from Texas-- she was very good with accents-- but again, she wasn't going to make a fool of herself by asking. 

"I doubt it." She laid back down in the tub and stared up at him as she returned to biting her thumbnail. "I haven't had a vision in a week, not one, and I have no idea what to tell Luna at our session today." He blinked at her. "I know you don't believe I even have them, but I do-- or I did, and now I don't, and she wants me to tell her what movie to pick and what to do about Andres, and I have no clue. I could fake it with everyone else, and I kept hoping it would come back, but not her and it hasn't, and I--"

"When have I ever told you I don't believe in your ability?" Jasper interrupted, a frown appearing on his lean and handsome face. 

"You expect me to believe _you_ believe in psychics?" 

"Not as a rule," he admitted, shaking his head. "But I have watched you for three years, and I've concluded from your success rate that the only explanation is that you do possess extrasensory abilities." 

_Huh._ That was some information she wasn't sure what to do with. 

"I assume for the past week you've been faking it?" 

"This is the very the first time!" she hastened to add. "But yeah, pretty much. I made educated guesses. The things Jocasta and Toby were asking about were so obvious I didn't even need a vision to tell them what to do. But Luna," she tilted her head back and moaned it, hearing that name echo around the huge, fancy bathroom. 

Her current hotel suite was bigger than the first house she remembered them living in back in Biloxi, back when her Granddaddy was still mad at her mama for getting pregnant so young and throwing her life away. This opulent life was what her gift had brought her. And now that it was gone - she struggled down the bubble of panic.

At least Jasper, the uber-capable Human Terminator, the best personal security professional in the world, the man who caught a serial killer the police didn't even know to look for, appeared to be seriously considering her dilemma. 

Today's appointment was with Luna Ventura, Alice's first superstar client, the one who had broken her through to the big time. She was a world-famous actress and singer who expected Alice to provide answers to two things today. The first, should she marry her European football player boyfriend, who was panty-meltingly gorgeous and at one time, the biggest womanizer in Spain? And the second, how could she win the only major award that still eluded her, her long-coveted Oscar? She had a choice between two big parts with equally famous directors and she had to make a commitment in the next week. If Alice didn't give her the right answer on one of these questions, Luna was eventually going to be very pissed and a pissed Luna could easily drive a number of Alice's other clients away. 

"Have you considered telling her the truth?" Jasper offered at last.

"That's your suggestion? Tell Luna Ventura that I don't know what she should do? Why don't I just take out a full-page ad in _Variety_ and the _Times_ to say I'm washed up and no one else should hire me?"

His eyes were exasperated but also surprisingly tender as he looked at her. If he felt she was that bad off, she really must be close to the edge. "That's not exactly how I would phrase it. Why don't you tell her you're going through some kind of personal issue and you're temporarily blocked?" He actually grinned at her now, his face so beautiful when his dark eyes lit up that she was glad she was lying down. "Psychically constipated."

"That's not the worst idea, I guess," she considered. But when she realized she had no idea, not the slightest clue, how Luna would take that excuse, it hit her again how empty and dark her life had been for the past week. 

Jasper continued, glancing at his watch, "Regardless, we'll never make it to this afternoon's appointment on time, so the most immediate option would be to try and reschedule it. Perhaps if we can delay, we can come up with a better solution."

"God, I hope so. All right, here goes." Alice picked up her phone and dialed Luna's first assistant (she had three, two of whom were constantly being fired and replaced, so she only communicated with the first one). "Anita, it's Alice Brandon. Yes, yes-- no, I can't come today." She hoarsened her voice. "I think I got food poisoning from the fish they served on the plane and I've been so sick, I'm having weird dreams. I need time to ruminate on my visions so I can guide her correctly. Yes, it happens sometimes. Does she have any openings-- Tomorrow?" She glanced at Jasper and he nodded. Her next appointment was three days away in Paris so if he switched their flight, they could make it. "All right, please give her my apologies and tell her I'll be there tomorrow. Ciao." She hung up and tossed her phone down. "Now what?"

He was ridiculously logical, the exact opposite of her more instinctual way of living. "If you want to recover your gift, have you tried to figure out exactly what caused you to lose it in the first place?"

"That's all I've thought about for the past week!" She threw her hands up. "I have no idea! I didn't even notice until that night that I hadn't had a vision all afternoon and they-- whoosh-- never came back."

"Well, what were you doing a week ago?" His brow furrowed. "We were in California that day. Did anything happen that was out of the ordinary? Some threat you didn't tell me about?"

"Hmm... A week ago, I wore that vintage McQueen dress and my new velvet pumps--"

"You had lunch with Miss Esme and Miss Swan, didn't you?" he finished. 

"Yes, at Blossom."

"Did anything unusual happen at the lunch?"

"I am in love," Esme declared as soon as Alice sat down. They leaned over to cheek-kiss and Bella glanced up from her phone and smiled at Alice. Bella wasn't the cheek kissing type and the little eye roll she gave Alice let her know she had already heard about Esme's latest passionate love affair. 

"Who is it this time? Not another male model, I hope."

Esme shook her head, her dark eyes gleaming. She and Bella were Alice's closest friends, even though they were completely different. Esme was a famous model, a member of that rare category of women who are so gorgeous they don't look quite real, more like statues come to life. Her skin was a flawless, glistening ebony, her cheekbones could cut glass, and her mouth was an irresistible bee-stung pout. Combined with the hugest heart in the world and a posh British accent, she was impossible not to love. 

She had hired Alice to consult on her career after her first Vogue cover. The first time they met, Esme swanned into the room in a champagne colored peignoir, declaring, "My beautiful spirit guide, you must call me Esme and only Esme, and I prostrate myself before your wisdom!" Alice immediately knew they were going to be friends for life. 

"No," Esme purred, fiddling with her phone to pull up a photo. "He's a doctor. _Carlisle."_ She lingered over the name, rolling it like a rich bite of chocolate over her tongue. 

"Like the hotel?" Alice said, raising her eyebrows as she peered at the photo. He was cute - tall and blonde and blue-eyed. He reminded her of a dweebier version of Captain America. She preferred Thor herself, but--

 _No, no, you don't,_ she chastised herself, even as she cut her eyes to Jasper, sitting at a table just out of earshot with Esme's security guard. He was surveying the room, looking like an implacable Norse God, but he turned his gaze to her as he always did when she looked at him. She ruthlessly battled back her blush and forced her attention back to Esme. 

"No, not like the hotel! _Carlisle Cullen._ He's the most wonderful, wise, kind, sexy--"

"Okay, okay." Bella sucked down her glass of wine. "I'm happy for you but I heard all this already." Bella's tolerance for romantic gossip was much lower than theirs. 

She was Alice and Esme's agent, the youngest currently on staff at CAA, as she would brag when they got her drunk. Alice's father had wanted her to hire someone more experienced, but like with Esme, the moment she met Bella, she didn't want anyone else. She was tough and hungry, with a predator's instinct for the deal. That day, she was dressed in black, as always, the outfit completed by her trademark vintage leather boots. Her hair was mahogany brown and glossy, pulled up in a careless twist that emphasized her pale skin and wide-set eyes. 

Out of habit, Esme and Alice ignored Bella's protests and Esme explained how she had met the magnificent Dr. Cullen on her latest UNICEF visit to Syria. More than her beauty or zest for life, Esme's most special gift was her natural talent for kindness. She did more charity work than Oprah and Angelina Jolie put together and she never used it for publicity. Apparently Dr. Cullen was cut from the same philanthropic cloth, which made him a nice change from the users she was often attracted to. 

"I'm so happy for you, and I promise I'll let you know the minute I get a vision about how it works out," Alice finally concluded, squeezing Esme's hand as the waiter put their plates down. Bella and Alice shared huge appetites and ordered the heartiest dishes that the vegan restaurant offered, while Esme stuck to a tiny salad covered in edible flowers. 

"But we will have the chocolate cake and pistachio coconut ice cream for desert. Three orders of it," Esme instructed, flashing the waiter a smile that almost made him drop the bottle of wine in Alice's lap. "Oh, and, best of all, he has a younger brother for Bella!" Esme clapped her hands as Bella almost choked on her lasagna.

"Excuse me?" Bella blurted as Alice spoke around her food and said, "Hey, what about me?"

"Edward is not your type, my darling Alice. He's a brilliant, moody artist and we know that's Bella's weakness."

"It is not!" Bella protested. (Newsflash: it totally was.)

"I haven't dated anyone in a year. Find someone for me, Esme!"

"Please, Alice, your destiny lies right in front of you. And it is, Bella! Look, the boy has a _Face_." Esme thrust her phone at Bella again.

"Wait, what is that supposed to mean?"

"He is cute," Bella admitted, "but it looks like I could eat him for lunch."

"He speaks five languages and funded his way through the Sorbonne playing championship poker."

"Someone tell me what that means, my destiny is right in front of me? Who, the waiter?"

Bella and Esme both stopped and looked at Alice in silence for a few beats. _"Alice!"_ they finally exclaimed together. 

"Jasper!" Esme hissed. "Jasper, Jasper Whitlock. James Bond, the Human Terminator, whatever you're calling him today, he is your destiny!" She clapped her hands at Alice in rhythm with her last four words and Bella nodded along with a really annoying smirk on her face. Alice noticed her gaze kept returning to Edward's picture on Esme's phone.

Then Alice closed her eyes and tried not to scream. These two were her best friends? Really?

"You two are my best friends? _Really?"_

"Alice, I don't go in for Esme's romance novel bullshit, but we agree on this. When are you going to stop fucking around and go for it?"

"Bells, Jasper is sitting over there with Esme's bodyguard, barely aware that I exist!"

"This girl is delusional," Bella told Esme and they both shook their heads sadly.

"He's literally _never_ called me Alice, do you realize that?" she exclaimed. She and Jasper exchanged glances again across the room and she reminded herself to keep her voice down. "Okay, what evidence is there that he likes me?"

Bella sat up straighter and began ticking points off on her fingers, her trademark take-no-prisoners bad bitch pose. "He waits on you hand and foot. He brings you coffee and water and food and he spent the whole night walking the streets when you lost Agatha that time--"

"Besides," Esme leered at her as she polished off the rest of her salad, "he looks at you like he wants to pin you down and lick you from head to toe. Marcel certainly never looks at me that way," she said, referring to her own bodyguard.

"Esme, _all men_ look at you that way -- except for the gay ones, like Marcel." Alice fiddled with her food and thought about their arguments. 

It was true that Jasper had an eerie ability to know what she needed almost before she did. He always had her favorite iced chai lattes ready when she woke up cranky and hungover; when she was hungry, he would get her an order of french fries from room service or In and Out; and when she was stuck in a really dull conversation at a party, he would extricate her from the conversation with a believable excuse. It was one of the other things about him that drove her crazy. They never talked about anything but her schedule and other business-related things, so how did he know her so well? 

"See, she's thinking about it now," Bella said, satisfied. 

"It's finally coming together! Imagine if all of us fall in love at once," Esme murmured dreamily, probably halfway to planning massive wedding dress shopping trips if Alice knew her at all.

"Okay, Edward's kind of hot, but I haven't even _met_ him, and that's a far fucking way from love, so calm down."

"And Jasper and I are about as compatible as Mark Ruffalo and Kellyanne Conway. You're just love-drunk."

Esme smiled her famous Mona Lisa smile and signaled the hovering waiter to deliver their desserts.

On the way home that day, Alice had thought about Bella's parting shot - "Your Jasper has an Instagram and a Tumblr dedicated to him, so if you don't make a move on him soon, someone else will." 

She had googled and pulled up both fan accounts. The Tumblr was dedicated to "Alice Brandon's SEX GOD Bodyguard" and it was full of paparazzi photos of her and Jasper at different events. She twisted her body away from Jasper sitting in the driver's seat, angling the phone so he couldn't see the screen, and began to scroll. 

Okay, so they looked good together. In the photos of them on the French Riviera last month, his hair shone like honeycomb in the sun and he had his arm on her back almost like they actually were a couple. 

She had to admit, privately and never to her friends, the real reason that she hadn't gone out on any dates for the past year. Whenever she saw a guy next to Jasper, no matter how handsome or successful or funny they were, they just didn't quite measure up. None of them gave her that thrill that Jasper did when he took her hand to help her out of a car, that rush of pleasure so intense it made her head swim like her best visions did. 

In France, she had taken an afternoon off to go to the beach for the first time in years. Some days she felt like she spent so much time seeing other people's lives that she barely had time to live her own. He had reluctantly dressed for the occasion, and when he walked out of his hotel room in his bathing suit, she made sure she was sitting down. She could tell even in his suits that his body was superhero-level amazing, but like this it was-- _holy wow._ Cut and toned, beautiful sculpted shoulders, eight-pack abs, and thighs so thick she thought again how gifted his tailor must be to cut his suits so perfectly. 

Alice had only looked out of the corner of her eye so he wouldn't get creeped out, but she could have sworn that he checked her out as well once they got to the beach and she shimmied out of her romper. It was difficult to tell behind those dark sunglasses he wore, but she felt that tell-tale bloom of heat that usually meant he was watching her. She wore a tiny white bikini to show off her olive skin, her pixie haircut newly trimmed and a ruby belly ring glinting in her navel. 

When she looked at the comments on that post, a decent percentage of them were about how she was probably anorexic (Alice snorted to herself, thinking about the chocolate cake and ice cream she had just scarfed down) and the rest all speculated if she and Jasper were hooking up. _There's definitely something between the two of them unfortunately,_ one commenter wrote. _I know someone who saw them coming out of a dressing room at a boutique in New York!_

Alice's cheeks flushed as she remembered the day they were talking about, and without looking at her, Jasper asked, "Is everything all right, ma'am?"

"Yep," she replied nonchalantly as she continued scrolling. "Just looking at some stuff on the Internet. Agatha videos," she said, referring to her dog. 

As they pulled up to her house, she hit pay dirt. One of his former classmates had posted a bunch of photos from Jasper's high school yearbook and whoa! Alice kept sneaking peeks at him over the top of her phone. He had longer hair in high school, wavier and streaked blonder by the sun, and of course, he had lettered in soccer and swimming. She knew it! God, she loved soccer thighs. The final photo was a candid shot of a young Jasper flanked by two other guys, the three of them holding up a blonde teenage girl almost as beautiful as Esme. They were all laughing at the camera, Jasper tossing his hair out of his face as his hands cradled the girl's back while she lounged across their extended arms. It was the kind of shot any clothing company would have killed to have in their catalog - that effortless cool of beautiful young people.

 _No wonder he's not interested in me,_ Alice thought, her stomach twisting. _He dated a supermodel in high school. She probably broke his heart and he's been traumatized ever since._

She realized with a start that he had shut off her car and turned to face her. "Do you have any plans for the evening, Miss Brandon?"

"Nope," she said, eyes still on her phone, "just staying in and watching Netflix." When she looked up at him, his eyes were focused over her shoulder, and she realized with a cold rush of dread that he could clearly see the phone's reflection in the window behind her. And she was zoomed in on his high school photo, his face filling practically the whole screen. 

He glanced back at her face as she frantically hit the home button and he actually _smiled_ a little. "Of course, Miss Brandon," he said, as smooth and cool as ever and she hated him, she really and truly did. 

Lying in the bathtub in the hotel in Rome, thinking about that day a week ago, she couldn't help but purse her lips and glare at him again. How dare he see her do stupid shit and not even mention it, thereby making her feel even stupider and more childish?! 

"I don't remember anything unusual happening, other than Esme falling in love again and trying to set Bells up with her boyfriend's brother. And P.S. you have an Instagram and a Tumblr dedicated to you," she finished, folding her arms. 

He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, then grimaced. "I know. My sister finds it hilarious."

It was rare for him to offer up a tidbit of his life and she pounced on it. "You have a sister?"

He nodded. "A twin. Rosalie. I believe they posted a picture of us on Tumblr. She was horrified, she always hated that picture."

"Oh. _Oh_." The blonde girl in that picture. Now that she thought about it, their smiles did look exactly alike, not to mention their hair. 

" _Oh_ ," he repeated, his eyes quietly amused. "Would you like me to order some room service, ma'am? I could get you some tea and those scones you like."

She twitched under his gaze, wanting to somehow provoke an emotional response, to puncture his unflappable calm. Even worse, she realized he was right, she was starving and thirsty and it sparked a thought that had been ruminating in the back of her mind for years. "How is it you always seem to know when I'm tired or angry or hungry? It's not just me, is it?" she demanded when he didn't answer. "You can do this with everyone."

He looked away from her, feigning a lack of concern. She watched his hands instead, those surprisingly gentle wide-palmed hands wrapped around the edge of the tub, his fingers pressing down so hard they were white with tension. 

"Jasper, do you have a _gift_? Like I do?" She was delighted. Alice had met a lot of people who claimed to have gifts similar to hers. They were all as fake as the costume jewelry her father had given her and Thea to play with when they were little kids. "That's amazing!"

"I certainly do not," he shoved himself to his feet, shoulders high and tense. She saw him consciously take a deep breath, roll his shoulders back. "Would you like some tea, Miss Brandon?"

"If I'm going down in flames, I'm sure not doing it drinking tea. Will you please order me champagne? And truffles and those little cookie things I love?"

He nodded, stiffly, still not looking at her, and began walking into the next room to order. 

"I'm sorry," she blurted out to his back. For all he drove her crazy, the thought of hurting him made her feel even worse. 

"Nothing to be sorry for, ma'am," he told her as he left and she stifled her sigh. 

Alice had always operated under the belief that nothing could be horrible if you had air in your lungs and food in your stomach. But even a bottle of good champagne and a tray of chocolate truffles and macarons couldn't solve her big problem. 

Jasper drank tea like a civilized person, of course, and helped himself to some of her macarons from the edge of the tub. They ate in silence. Alice felt her ever-spiralling panic between them like a living thing. She was determined to sit in this bathtub until they found an answer or until her life was in shambles around her, and it seemed like the latter was inching closer by the second. _What was she going to do?_ Everyone would see her as a failure, her father, people would start to say she had never been gifted, it was all an act...

She struggled to her knees holding the tray of food, and instantly he was on his feet, lifting it out of her arms. His attentiveness, even now when she was being a misery, made tears spring out of her eyes. 

He placed the tray on the floor and watched her with cautious eyes. "Miss Brandon, we have 24 hours to solve this problem and I have no doubt that we can come up with a solution that will both preserve your reputation and--"

She sobbed harder. "What if I never get them back, Jasper? What am I going to do then?" Her chest spasmed as she leaned forward, hugging her head to her knees and struggling to breathe. 

He had scooted along the edge of the tub until he was sitting next to her. She guessed she should be intimidated by his size-- he was a whopping 17 inches taller than her after all-- but it had the opposite effect on her. He made her feel so safe when he was near her that it always made her muscles go limp. It was the weirdest combination of wanting to crawl on top of him and devour him alive and also wanting him to lie next to her in bed and stroke her hair until she fell asleep.

He put his hand on her back, his warmth soaking through her skin to her heart and lungs and she drank in deep sips of air, hoping he wouldn't take his hand away yet. 

"It's all right," he told her, his voice so deep and rough she felt it through her marrow. "We are fully capable of solving this problem together, Miss Brandon."

She remembered him saying those same words during the last panic attack he had seen her through, back when that psycho was still out there hunting her. It was a lot worse than this, and he had hugged her then, sitting on the floor in the kitchen with those horrible photos of her eyeless face scattered on the floor around them. He had only been with her for a month. She had let herself melt into his strength, the broadness of his chest against her cheek. It seemed like his heart was beating so hard and part of her mind started to hope _maybe, maybe_. But when she finally stopped crying, he patted her on the back and picked her up easily. He set her on the kitchen chair and made her a cup of tea and they never talked about it again. 

Now, in this hotel room three years later, she realized he had solved all the problems she had given him to handle, without a single complaint or protest, so she nodded and sat back up, sniffling. 

"I'm sorry," she said again and when he looked surprised she gestured to her face. "For crying and you know, falling apart."

"I understand how upsetting it is, Miss. I wish you had told me you were having this problem earlier." He reached over to the marble countertop without even needing to get up and handed her the hotel's box of expensive tissues, complete with their logo imprinted in each corner. 

Alice thanked him and then scowled as she wiped her eyes. The curse of being so short was that nothing was convenient or within easy reach and she had to climb on a stool to get chips out of her own kitchen cabinet. Not to mention she was constantly staring up at literally everyone, including the six foot three man sitting on the edge of her bathtub at this moment. 

"It's not like we have many long heart-to-heart talks, Jasper."

His frown deepened. "Have I been neglect in my duties in some way, ma'am?"

"Jasper, I'm five years younger than you! Will you please, please stop calling me ma'am? And if you're going to watch me sob, will you at least lay down in the tub so I don't have to look up at you the whole time?"

The tub was big enough that three people could lay like starfishes and barely brush against each other, but he still looked slightly appalled at the suggestion. His lips moved like he was going to say ma'am again, but looking at her flushed face, he must have thought better of it. Instead, to her shock, he stood up, unbuttoned and removed his suit jacket, and climbed into the tub. He stretched out and even scooted down far enough that their heads were at the same level. 

"Thank you." She managed a smile and he offered up a tentative one in response. "I'm sorry. Again. I just really hate being called ma'am. And I guess I get cranky not knowing what will happen. Who knew?" She took another deep breath and continued before he could respond. "I'm so scared, Jasper. 

"I've had them my whole life," she said, picking at the last tissue. "My visions. But when people started to really believe in them, it was like a switch flipped and they started coming more, and the more people who believed in me, the more and more I had. It was the only time my dad-- when people started hiring me, he realized he could make money off me. And I know it was stupid," she said, finally raising her eyes to his face now that the tissue in her hands was completely shredded, "but it made me feel good when he spent time with me, and it made me feel good to help people. I tried to help people make good choices, make the world a little better. Keep them from being hurt or disappointed or betrayed. And now I have nothing, and I don't know what will happen to Esme and her new boyfriend, and I don't know how Thea's audition with the New York City Ballet will go, and I can't tell Luna anything! I don't even know what you're going to say right now," she said, as he began to open his mouth. He closed it again. "Not that I ever had any visions of you anyway," she sighed sadly, for it was true, in all the years they had worked together, she had never seen a single thing about Jasper. 

"So you're like everyone else now," he said at last, his eyes studying her face so intently she felt like she had stripped naked before him. "It's not so horrible, is it?" 

She wrinkled her face up. "How would you feel if you lost both your arms?"

"I can kickbox, so I could protect you with my feet," he answered seriously and she actually managed to giggle a little, picturing him armless and still kicking the crap out of some nasty jerk yelling abuse at her on the street, like people sometimes did. 

"But my visions are more than my career," she continued, her smile falling away. "They're like Esme's charity work or my sister's dancing. They're what I've built my life around, they're the only thing that makes me special."

"What are you talking about?" he asked through gritted teeth, his jaw clenched.

"I mean, who am I without my visions? A vapid little socialite. How many friends do you think I'll have once they're gone? How often will my father call me once he figures out the stock tips have run dry? I don't have any talents other than being able to accessorize and remember people's names at parties--"

"Alice," he snapped (she was so startled by his use of her name and his tone that her mouth dropped open), "you have a number of extraordinary qualities, entirely separate from your gift, and I have no doubt you could live a very happy and successful life without it."

There was silence as he continued to glare at her with blazing brown eyes. Finally she managed to close her mouth and respond, "Okay. Like what?"

"I don't think it's the time to enumerate all your positive traits." He was trying to collect himself, she could tell, to restore his businesslike persona.

"I'm half-drunk and crying in a bathtub, Jasper. If there's ever a time to tell me something good about myself--"

"You're sensitive and you're kind, you're as stubborn as a mule, you're brilliant." He struck the last word hard and it rang through the room like a revelation. _He thought she was brilliant?_ "Everyone loves you. When people find out I work for you, they practically start dancing, they're so excited. And even if you never had another vision, you would be all of those things, successful and vibrant and desirable and--" 

He cut himself off again and looked away, even placed his hand on the edge of the tub like he was going to climb out. She quickly responded, "Okay, that was -- thank you. No more pity party. You're right - I'm the shit." 

They grinned at each other, his eyes falling for just a flash of a second to her mouth, before his face went serious again. "Never underestimate how many people want to help you, Alice."

"I don't thank you enough for all you do for me," she said, wishing she could reach out and touch him -- she would probably throw caution to the wind and do it, if it didn't mean she would have to awkwardly inch her way across the whole tub. "You've been the very best, Jasper, not just at keeping me safe, but all those little things you do-- however it is you know to do them. I would be lost without you." 

It was afternoon by now, that rich Rome light falling across the bathtub, and he was watching her face with that tender look in his eyes again, the one that made her one that made her own eyes burn. It was strangely intimate in the way she always hoped they could be. Even if she was half-drunk, chocolate smeared, and tear-stained in a big marble bathtub, at least she was with the only man she wanted to be with.

"It's been my privilege to protect you, Alice. I hope you know how much this job means to me." He was fidgeting with his tie, which for anyone else would be unremarkable, but Jasper had the ability to be preternaturally still when he needed to be, so she knew it meant he was nervous too. 

"We've had a lot of adventures together. I was thinking about that time we were shopping in that boutique in New York-- you probably don't remember--"

"That woman tried to enter your dressing room, screaming about how you were a prophet sent from Jesus and she had to talk to you," he finished. "I do remember."

"Yeah. Me too." She had been in the middle of getting changed when Jasper burst in, which meant she was mostly naked and he pressed her against the wall, his hands on her back, while the store security removed the woman, literally kicking and screaming. He smelled so good, she remembered thinking, and she sort of hoped the woman screamed down the whole building for a little while longer before they made her leave, so she could enjoy the shelter of him around her. 

"What made you think of that?" he asked. 

"I don't know, just getting nostalgic, I guess. If I can't see the future, I'll have to learn to think more about the past. This is nice," she said, leaning her head against the back of the tub lazily, looking around the room. "If I really have lost it for good, I guess it'll be back to staying at the Motel 6." 

He laughed. "Now _that_ I cannot picture."

"What?" She put on a face of mock outrage. "We used to when I was a kid. We went to Disney World one year, before Thea was born, and we stayed at some crummy motel like fifty miles away from the park. Everything in the room was sticky, even the bedspread," she remembered, giggling and wrinkling her nose at once. "Mama was so grossed out she wanted to sleep in her car but my dad made it all into a game. We stayed up late eating pork rinds, and my daddy, he used to do this game where he would pretend to interview me and ask me questions about whatever, random things. I would prattle away and Mama would laugh because I could always talk about anything. Probably one of the best family vacations of my whole life." Back when her parents had loved each other, she reflected, before her father started sleeping around and her mother became so melancholy.

"We used to go over to New Orleans to visit my mom's sister. She didn't have any kids, so she loved when Rosalie and I came to visit. She would take us to the aquarium, the wax museum--"

"The wax museum?" Alice started laughing. 

"Yes, I loved that place!" he said, grinning. "When I was a kid, I wanted to be a history teacher and they had all these historical scenes set up with the wax figures. It was the closest I ever got to a museum, I suppose." 

They stare at each other for a moment. She was trying to picture him as a scrawny ten-year old with scabby knees, studying some dusty depiction of Marie Laveau, and she guessed he was trying to picture her as a chubby five-year old eating pork rinds on a motel bed. 

"Are we playing 20 Questions?" she asked suddenly, thinking of all the things she had always wanted to ask him about himself. 

He hesitated a minute but finally shook his head. "We should be trying to come up with some solution to your problem, Alice, and I don't see how that would help. Though... maybe if I asked you questions about your powers, it would stir something in your mind that would explain what happened to them."

"All right, but I get to ask you things too."

He shrugged. "Okay. So. What was the last vision you remember having?"

She had to think about it. "It was for Karista Dupree that morning before I went to lunch," she said, referring to one of her new clients, a rising tennis phenom. "I saw her twisting her knee while she was snowboarding in Vail."

"Your gift was functioning normally up to that time, then?"

"I'm not sure what normal is when you're talking about seeing visions of the future, but yes, I guess so. That's two questions," she said, pouncing on that fact immediately. "Now my turn! Do you hate the music I listen to in the car, because sometimes when you're driving and I'm listening to something, you get this weird expression on your face."

He gave her a deadpan stare. " _That's_ what you want to ask me?"

"Well, do you?" 

"I don't have any weird expressions. And no, not really. I hate Adele, but the rest of it's all right."

"You hate _Adele_? Who on earth hates Adele?!"

"Is that a question?"

"No." There were a few topics she was dying to ask him about, but she didn't know if she wanted to throw a wrench into the game this early. "Question two - is your closet full of nothing but black suits? Like, do you have ten of the exact same one?"

He tilted his head back and laughed. "Not ten, but yes, I have mutliples." He leaned his head back on the tub, imitating her pose. She had never seen him look more relaxed, even all buttoned-up as he was, his perfect tie still knotted under that strong jaw. "Are you complaining? I thought you liked my suits." His eyes were glittering at her and a roar of heat started in her stomach, one that was fueled by her heart, pumping _Jasper Jasper Jasper_ so even her fingertips throbbed with the pulse of his name. 

"Maybe." She swallowed, scraping her eyes over him as she looked away, across the room to the beautiful Italian sky out the window. 

"It's my turn. Is it true what you said, that you've never had a vision of me?" 

"Of course," she said, immediately looking back to him. "I wouldn't lie about that. And it doesn't make any sense, I should see you, but I never have."

"Good," he said, looking pleased.

"Most people beg me to have a vision of them, you know."

"I like to make my own future," he replied. "Your turn."

"Me seeing it doesn't _change_ anything. It just gives you a heads-up, so you can prepare," she pointed out, a little exasperated. He of all people should know that. "What's the stupidest thing you've ever done?"

"Oh, that's a long list." After that, he went silent for so long that she grabbed a macaron and tossed it at him. He bent his head to the side and caught it in his mouth and she rolled her eyes. Of course, Jasper was even impressive at that. It figured. "I don't want to answer," he told her, finally, watching her from under his eyelashes. "Give me another one."

"I get an extra, if you're not going to answer. Who's your best friend?"

That brought an instant wide grin to his face. "Emmett McCarty. Since freshman year of high school."

"Is he like you?"

That made him laugh, loud and long. "Not at all. We're complete opposites. I guess that's why we're friends. He ended up marrying my sister, Rosalie, so he's my brother-in-law now."

"Oh wow! Were you excited when they started dating?" 

"It was weird at first. Emmett panted after her for a year before Ro would agree to go out with him. She was always so focused on her studies. But it worked out all right in the end. She got a full scholarship to college and med school. They're actually expecting their first baby in a few months." 

The thought of Jasper holding a baby almost exploded her brain. _So much cuteness._

"What would you have done with your life if you hadn't been discovered at Fatima Khan's party?" he asked her.

She wasn't surprised he knew about that, it was part of her professional mythology, but she was surprised he remembered the girl's name. "Oh, I don't know. I thought about being a personal stylist, maybe. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a hairdresser. That was, like, my biggest dream."

"Really? Mine was being a Ninja Turtle." 

They both laughed. "Well, you came pretty darn close, being the Human Terminator and all."

"Speaking of which..." he glanced at her and looked away. "I've heard you and Miss Esme and Miss Swan call me that. The Terminator was a robot, wasn't he? It doesn't seem entirely complimentary." 

_Shit._ Had he been working for her all these years believing she was making fun of him behind his back? 

"Oh, Jasper, I'm sorry. I never meant-- that's where the Human part comes in. Remember, when we first met, I said you looked like that guy in the first movie and I-- it was meant to be a compliment. Just that you were so insanely good at your job and you never gave up. That's all."

After that rambling speech, she might as well give up on her dignity, so she inched forward across the wide span of marble between them and placed her hand on his ankle. "I really am sorry if it offended you."

He looked at her hand, then up at her face. "I suppose I am single-minded when it comes to you."

"I promise never to use it again," she raised her other hand and fixed her face into Girl Scout solemnity. "If you promise--"

"No more ma'am." He raised his own hand, an identical expression on her face. "Though that is the appropriate way for me to address you."

"Here." She threw her body half-over the side of the tub and grabbed the champagne bottle. "We'll seal it with a drink." She passed him the bottle and he took a large swig. She clapped her hands in delight. "Once you go bathtub, Jasper, you never go back!"

He set the tray of food between them and they resumed eating, passing the bottle back and forth. Jasper actually ventured out of the tub briefly to get her a bottle of water, so she wouldn't get too drunk, and she took the opportunity to quickly run her hands over her hair. She hoped she looked halfway decent, but then he had seen her in various states of dress and undress, so there probably wasn't much she could do to sell him at this point. But still.

"I know you didn't want to talk about it," she said around a mouthful of macaron, "but I really want to ask something. You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

He hesitated before responding, taking another fortifying gulp of champagne. "Is this about you thinking I'm..."

"Yes," she answered promptly and he frowned a little, but finally nodded. "You're the only other person I've ever met like me!"

"It's not--" He shoved his hand through his hair, roughly, and sighed. "It's not like yours, not nearly as powerful. My mother..."

"Your mother was a gypsy and your father bore the mark of the werewolf?"

He huffed out a laugh and leaned back against the wall of the tub. "No. My mother raised Rosalie and me on her own. She has... Today they call it rapidly cycling bipolar disorder. Some days she would be up, chattering and cooking huge stacks of pancakes and pies, and other days she wouldn't be able to get out of bed. By the time I was seven years old, I could tell, before I even opened my eyes in the morning, which one it was going to be." He shrugged uneasily. "I guess I got good at picking up what people were feeling. Their emotions, what they needed. The more I know people, the more obvious it is."

"Like me," Alice murmured and he smiled at her. "Thank you for telling me that, Jasper."

"Most people aren't able to pick up on what I'm doing. I guess we've been together so long--" He flushed a little when he realized how his words had come out. 

"How is your mother today?" she asked, genuinely curious and hoping the answer was a good one. "Is she okay?"

He nodded, smiling. "Yes. She still has bad days, but they found a medication regimen a few years ago that's working well, and she got remarried last summer to a very nice guy. He runs a yoga studio in Austin."

"That is where you're from then, Texas?" He nodded again. "I knew it!" This camaraderie between them was how she had always imagined, or dreamed, it could be - easy and free. "I've asked a bunch of questions. You go."

"When you first started having your visions, were you scared?" 

People have asked her that before, but never quite as urgently as he did. He looked at her like it really mattered to him, like the thought of her being afraid of her own mind would break him. 

"No, not really. It always felt normal to me, even though I knew it was really unusual... A lot of people thought I was lying, especially when my visions didn't come true. That was the worst part. My dad thought I was faking it, for years. Thea always believed me," she said, smiling as she always did when she thought of her little sister. "Or she believed in me, I guess. My turn." She watched him watching her. The food on the tray was decimated and her water bottle was empty. She really wanted some tacos but she wanted even more to keep sitting here with him. And she realized her biggest want was to find out exactly what he really thought of her. 

"You know, when you first started working with me, I thought we could be friends. Like this. But then I thought you didn't like me." He looked hurt at that and her heart stuttered a bit. She chewed on her lip while she gathered up all her confidence to throw the big question at him. "But you do like me, don't you, Jasper?"

One second, two.... She crossed her fingers, hoping. Three...

And then something in his face shattered and he grabbed her, pulled her until she sprawled over him and kissed her.

 _Oh boy._ She thought in some distant chamber of her brain, as bells and rockets and the biggest brightest fireworks went off in the rest of it. 

It was long and messy and perfect, the kind of kiss that took three years of bubbling chemistry to create. He bit her lip as he pulled away, and pressed his forehead, hard, against hers, which was perfect too. 

She stared at him close up, like she never had before, studying the texture of his skin and the softness of his hair against her skin. She touched her swollen mouth. Every inch of her that was pressed against him throbbed like it had been brushed by fire. His chest was heaving and he was looking at her like Esme had said he did - like he wanted to lick her from head to toe. She hoped she was looking at him the same way, because she desperately needed to get her mouth back on him. 

She reached out and pulled at his tie, unknotting it and loosening the buttons of his collar. His throat was so warm against her fingers, rough where his afternoon stubble had started to grow in, and he sat up, yanking his tie over his head. Hope started to rise in her heart and then he looked at her and shook his head. 

"Of course I _like_ you, Alice. That's the least of it. But you're my employer and I _can't_." He looked truly tortured, she realized, like the idea of them went against some internal code.

"Is that why we haven't done this for the past three years?" 

"It's unprofessional," he sighed. "Plus, when we met, you were dating someone."

"What are you-- oh, Ronan." She sat up and thought back to her last serious boyfriend. Jasper watched her warily, his long form and blonde hair a far cry from Ronan. Ronan Patel was the first and only celebrity boyfriend she'd ever had -- ironically, he was the former boy bander that performed at the birthday party where she'd been discovered, all those years ago. He was short but adorable, with shaggy dark hair and extravagently lashed dark eyes that spoke to his half-Indian, half-Irish heritage. It wasn't until Jasper, she realized with a start, that her tastes had changed to blonde Norse God types. "Yeah, I guess I was. But I'm not dating anyone now. I haven't been able to imagine doing that for a while now," she admitted in a rush. 

"Likewise." He was edgy with the tension in the room and flipped another button open on his shirt. Her eyes followed the movement and he swallowed hard.

"I want another question," she told him and he stared at her in confusion. "If I don't get my powers back, you would leave, wouldn't you?" Without her powers, her life would be a directionless maze, and without Jasper by her side, his gaze sweeping over her and warming her from the inside out, she would be so lonely. Really, truly alone.

His answer was fast and definite. " _No._ Why would I do that?"

"What do you mean why? I won't be working--"

"You are very, very rich, Alice," he countered. "You have enough money not to have to work for the rest of your life, though I imagine you would want to find another career at some point. I don't think you would like to stay idle forever."

"Jasper, you're too talented to be working for someone like me. I needed you when that psycho was on the loose, but now you should be working for the head of the U.N. or for someone like Luna," she said. 

He looked offended more than angry, his jaw clenched again. "If you want me to leave you because you find my work unsatisfactory, I will." 

"I'm not saying-- didn't I just say you're good enough to work for Luna Ventura? Do you really want to sit around and watch me shop and eat with Bella and Esme and fall apart waiting for my visions to come back?"

He sighed, shaking his head. The afternoon sun was in his eyes, lighting up the deep brown. They looked like a place she wanted to crawl into and curl up. He looked like the best place to rest. "I have more faith in you than you do, Alice. You're not going to fall apart. You didn't fall apart when you were being stalked by a _serial killer_ and you're not falling apart now."

She crawled over him and sat on the edge of the tub, dangling her feet against his perfect thighs. His muscles were so tense they didn't indent a bit. "Do you ever think about what would have happened if I were a regular girl working in a salon and you were just a guy who came in looking for a hair cut?" 

"All the time," he said, as quick and easy as he had before, when he told her he wouldn't leave her. "I would take you to dinner, we would go dancing. I would want to stay with you, to stay around you as long as I could. I would send you lilies the next day," he told her in a low voice and she could see it in her mind, like having a vision again. 

"That was what I didn't want to tell you earlier," he said, ducking his head a little. "That was the stupidest thing I ever did, to agree to work for you when I _knew_ by the end of that first car ride. When I saw how sweet and funny and beautiful you were. You were like no one I'd ever met in my life. And I wanted you so much but I knew I had to help you or that animal would have killed you, so I did what I thought was the best thing."

"And you saved me," she whispered in wonder, because he had. He looked at her like he had used up all his words on that one speech and soon he would have to resort to something better than talking. "How long do you want to stay with me?" She reached out her hand to touch him, spread her fingers as wide as possible over his thundering heart. 

"Forever," he whispered softly. 

She felt like a bottle of champagne was being shaken in her chest, all bubbles and fizz and delicious wonder. _Forever._

"I've always wanted you. I've always wanted to do this--" He reached up and ran his thumb just under her bottom lip, traced her jaw up to her ear, her three dangly good luck earrings spinning in unison when he brushed over them. "But I treated you with all the professionalism and respect required of someone in my position. To do otherwise would have been--"

"Human?" She leaned over and brushed her mouth so lightly over his, just an impression of his warmth, his smell and his taste making her knees so weak she almost collapsed on top of him. "I like humans, Jasper. I like single-minded, beautiful, strong, gentle humans, really, really, a lot." She maneuvered herself until she was sitting over his thighs, splaying her hands on his rock-hard abdomen for balance. 

"We can't do this because you're scared of what's going to happen when you get out of this bathtub," he told her, his hands tense on her hips, like he wasn't sure if he would push her away or pull her even closer. 

"I'm not scared of anything when you're around. Besides, I don't know that we're going to do anything," she said, putting on a prissy face. "I might just dry-hump your gorgeous body 'til I come." 

He groaned, his hands moving her hips in a small circle against him, leaning back so his throat was exposed to her lips and tongue. "Alice..."

"Jasper," she whispered back, her teeth scraping over his earlobe. "Why do you always smell so good, like, all the time? All the days and nights I spent wanting you," she murmured, kissing her way over his face to his other ear, and whispering into it, "wishing I had the nerve to go into your hotel room--"

He must have had those same fantasies, because that was the end of his control. He kissed her again, his hand on her back holding her close as he rolled, somehow managing to cushion her head so it didn't knock against the bottom of the tub. Not that she would have felt it - her world was six feet three inches of burning hot muscles pressed against her, delicious champagne-flavored kisses, and the man who adored her, who took care of her for three years in devoted silence, kissing the daylights out of her. 

They stopped to breathe and when she saw his eyes she wondered where that phrase came from because if anything, they were both lit up like Times Square on New Year's Eve. Maybe they were kissing the daylights back into each other, she thought as she attacked his shirt buttons, ripping them free and groaning as she filled her hands up with his skin. 

A long while later, she sprawled out, cushioned on top of him, lolling her head on his chest and listening to him hum in his throat, like he did sometimes, unconsciously, when the room was quiet. _Wild Horses,_ she realized abruptly. "Wild, wild horses couldn't drag me away..."

"You're not going to regret this, are you?" she told him, lifting her head. "I won't. I never will. And I don't know what's going to happen, but I don't want to go back."

He smiled up at her and reached out his hand, lazily linking their fingers together. She stared at him in wonder and he shook his head at the questioning look in her eyes. "Once you go bathtub, Alice, you never go back."

##### Six Months Later

"So you describe it as a flood of images. Was it painful or just disorienting?" Rosalie asked, taking notes in her phone while Alice sat on a stool at the kitchen island in Rosalie and Emmett's beautiful New York apartment.

Alice was holding their two month old daughter, Augusta, in her lap. "Just disorienting. It was a lot to take in. I've never gotten an entire week's worth of visions back at once. You are the most adorable little wiggleworm in the whole world!" she cooed to Gussie, who grinned a baby version of her daddy's dimpled grin up at her Aunt Alice. "And you're so smart! You're gonna be smarter than your mama, little miss." She stroked her hand over her tiny head full of wispy blonde curls-- she had hair just like her mama and her Uncle Jasper already-- and kissed her temple. 

"Amazing," Rosalie murmured, bending over her phone. Alice smiled at her. She had been so nervous about meeting Rosalie. She was a freaking neuropsychologist, after all, and Alice hadn't even gone to college, plus she was Jasper's sister and her husband was his best friend. Thankfully they got along well. Rosalie was professionally fascinated by Alice's visions, especially the story of how she had recovered her gift after sleeping with Jasper (well, they skipped over that part of the story, for obvious reasons) and how the week's worth of visions she missed had flooded back into her brain, one after the other. 

Alice hypothesized that the Thing between her and Jasper had finally gotten so big, taken up so much of her brain, that her visions couldn't squeeze their way around it. (Rosalie had more technical terms for all of this, of course.) Now that they were together, she was having clearer visions than ever, including plenty about him, which he was learning to accept. He mostly hated that he could never surprise her, though he said it was a small sacrifice to make for everything else they had now. 

"I hope your Uncle Jasper gets here soon, I'm starving," Alice told Gussie, who stared at her blankly.

"Oh, that's right, all your friends are coming in tonight, right?" 

"Yes, I haven't seen Esme since we moved to New York," Alice said, though they had spoken on the phone almost daily. "And Bella and her boyfriend will be there too."

Bella had agreed to go out to dinner with Edward while she was in France with a client for the Cannes Film Festival. As soon as they met, it was almost like the two of them fell into a black hole. They were so absorbed in each other they couldn't leave the hotel room, and Bella didn't return a single phone call for a week, which was literally unheard of. When she finally emerged, giddy and mussy-haired on the other end of a Skype call, Alice asked, "Who are you and what have you done with my cynical, doubting little Bella who didn't believe in love?"

"What have you done with my best friend Alice who thought Jasper didn't know she was alive?" Bella retorted. Jasper, sitting just out of camera range on their bed, shook his head and smiled.

Esme was quite smug now, since of course she took the credit for both of their romances, but she was also so blissfully happy with Carlisle that her "I told you!"s weren't as annoying as they probably should be. Tonight was the first time the three couples would be having dinner together. 

"Here he is," Rosalie told her with a smile, a few seconds before Alice heard the front door open. Rosalie claimed she didn't have any powers (like being brilliant, successful, and drop-dead gorgeous with a perfect little family weren't powers enough) but she and Jasper did have a Twin Thing where each could predict the other one's comings and goings. 

Sure enough, a minute later, Jasper appeared in the entryway to the kitchen. Alice turned on her stool to watch him come in, as she always did. It amazed her a little - even after six months with him, every time he looked at her, it felt like he was touching her, and every time he touched her, he made her feel like that was the reason sensation had been invented. Even if it was just a little touch, like now, when he brushed his fingers over her cheek and bent to kiss his niece's forehead. Alice teased him by gently tugging a lock of his hair and he paid her back by bending lower and nipping at her thigh. 

Augusta started to fuss and Rosalie reached over and lifted her out of Alice's arms, popping her breast out and fiddling her baby's mouth onto it. "Were you able to get reservations at Second Coming for tonight?" she asked, and Jasper nodded, his eyes still on Alice.

"The rest of them are meeting us there at seven," he said. "I don't have to go in until 10 tomorrow so we can have a late night." He had refused to take another paycheck from Alice after they slept together. Once they decided to move to New York, he had gotten a job as chief of security for the mayor, which didn't pay as much as she did but required a lot less travel. He was planning to retire from security in a few years and go to school to become the history teacher he always dreamed he would be.

They had wasted so much time not being properly together that they spent their days now in a cloud of intoxicating giddiness. Alice was trying to learn how to cook, but no matter how good or bad it turned out, they always ended up dancing in their kitchen in their bare feet. On his days off, they sprawled on the grass in Central Park for hours, throwing the ball for their dog, while they talked and read and licked ice cream off each other's lips. She got to watch him dress in his perfect black suits every day, usually sipping the tea he brought her in bed while he tried to pretend he didn't enjoy her eyes on him. And best of all, he came home to her every night, crawled into their bed and eventually stroked her hair until she fell asleep. (The eventually was the best part, but the hair-stroking was the second.) 

"Do you want to get a sitter for the little one and you could join us?" he asked his sister, but Rosalie shook her head.

"No, Emmett and I are going to have a quiet night at home." She beamed down at her baby. Alice had never seen a happier mother in her life than Rosalie, and Emmett was the most doting husband and father she could imagine. He was in training for the Olympics at the moment, which took up a ton of time, so Alice knew how treasured those nights at home were for both of them.

"Oh, Thea's going to try to come by once she gets out of rehearsal!" she reminded Jasper. Thea had indeed been accepted to the New York City Ballet and she loved spending what time she could with Alice and Jasper, though her schedule was also packed. "Her birthday was Monday and I think she might still be a little down that Dad forgot again."

Even though Alice had recovered her abilities, she had taken a hard look at her life and decided she had spent enough of it flying all over the world catering to rich people. Jasper was right, she was wealthy enough not to have to work, but instead she cut back her client list to the few she liked the most and counseled them over Zoom sessions from her and Jasper's New York apartment. She loved being in one city all the time and she was taking part-time college classes at a city college. She sort of liked the idea of becoming a therapist, so she could counsel people properly, not just about their futures. Agatha was small enough to hide in her bag so she always accompanied Alice to class.

She had let Luna and her other former clients spread the word that she had lost her powers, so she almost never got hassled on the street anymore. And she had let her father believe the same. As she predicted, he hadn't called her in six months. It hurt, but not as much as twisting herself into a pretzel trying to please him. 

Somehow this had given her mother strength, or maybe just inspiration, and she finally filed for divorce and started therapy. Her therapist had also recommended physical activity to help with her mother's depression, which is why now, only two months after her divorce was final, her mom was slowly and sweetly falling in love with Leah Clearwater, her intense, beautiful personal trainer.

("Must be something in your family that makes them fall in love with the help," Jasper teased her when he found out. "Tell Thea to watch out for the plumbers she hires.")

Rosalie and Jasper were discussing one of her cases, his hand warm on the back of her neck, while she stared out their windows at the bustling city spread out below them. She felt the vision coming as she leaned against his chest and felt the edges of the jewelry box in his pocket. 

Her mind lit up like those city streets: she and him cozied up in bed one night soon, his heart in his eyes as he asked her to be his wife. That jewelry box would be open in his hand, revealing the emerald-cut diamond ring within. 

And no one else but her would realize he picked it because it looked like that big marble bathtub.

**Author's Note:**

> All happy endings, all the time. I actually fell in love with this Esme so much that I kinda want to do a 2nd chapter about her and Carlisle's wedding. Some of the characters are a little changed from the original, but I hope I still kept their "essence."
> 
> Random thoughts: Alice's stalker is meant to be James (was that obvious?). Edward is still telepathic in this universe; that's why he's so good at poker. Alice and Thea (Cynthia) are only 6 years apart here, so Alice is 23 for most of the story and Thea's 17.


End file.
